Graveyard interview

"Happy music is very often bad music"

18/12/2013 @ 13:19

Graveyard had just finished their sound check, just a few hours before their first show in Greece, which led to a sold out show with more than 1.200 people attending and filling the venue. Axel Sjöberg (drums)and Rikard Edlund (bass) grabbed a drink and proved to be two relaxed and cool guys, as down to earth as they could be, who truly play the music they love and enjoy the ride as Graveyard get bigger and bigger. In the conversation that followed we had the chance to talk about the band's success, the 'new classic rock' scene, the lyrics of their songs, the tour with Soundgarden and many more topics.

We’re very glad to have Graveyard here for the very first time. How is it for you guys?Axel: We’re very glad to be in Greece for the first time too…Rikard: Absolutely…

I think it’s a good time as the audience here loves the style you play and you seem to be at the top your game. Many people consider you like the leaders of this new wave of “vintage rock”. How do you see yourselves in this scene?Rikard: We just try to play the music that we like to play and I don’t think I can put it in another way, other than that. We play the music that we like to hear and sometimes we come up with riffs and melodies that we like and we play it and then sometimes it happens to sound like some bands from a long ago…Axel: I have very mixed emotions to the word “vintage” rock. Because, to me, vintage is something old, you don’t bring anything new to the table. But, I like to think that we play classic rock. Sort of like, if you build a house with bricks and wood you wouldn’t call it a “vintage house”. You would call it a house, because it’s a technique. It has been used for a long time, but it never goes out of style. So, of course, we listen to a lot of rock bands that were at the peak of their career from 1968 to 1975, but I think we play “new classic rock”. Not “nu” like nu metal, but new classic rock with a lot of different influences and yes there are many bands that we’ve listened to also, but I don’t know if we’re a part of this scene. I mean we know them, most of the bands know each other, but I don’t really know…Rikard: We’ve played this kind of music for a long time and it surprised me that all of a sudden people have opened up their eyes and ears to this kind of music. I don’t know why on this occasion, but we’ve talked about it a couple of times and I think music moves in circles. It takes 20 years for scene to come back and it stays for about 10 years or so. It took 20 years for 80’s metal, the 80’s scene to come back at 2000 or maybe 2005. I think it’s time again for people to listen to this kind of music. I guess in a couple of years the 80’s scene is going to be bigger… I don’t know.

Firstly, let me make it clear that there was nothing negative about the word “vintage” that I used. Then, what makes the different is who does something good and who doesn’t. You don’t only do it well, but right now that there is a trend with new bands emerging in this sound, on the press releases, they’ll say that they “sound like Graveyard”. So, either you call it new classic rock or whatever you are among the leaders of the scene. Do you get the feeling that your music is more accepted nowadays than it would be 10 years earlier for some reason?Axel: There are so many factors for a band to make it. I mean being good at playing your music is just a small part. You have to meet the right people, the right people have to see you at a concert somewhere. Maybe now, we’ve reached a level where it’s not just people who love Black Sabbath and Fleetwood Mac that listen to us. It’s more like… especially in countries that we play a lot… oh, I’m afraid to get the word out of my mouth… we’re becoming “mainstream” (laughs). You know, average people like us…Rikard: I never thought we would win a grammy or we would be on the radio. I thought we would be underground for the rest of our lives, but all of a sudden people started listening to that kind of music. And I think, hopefully, that this will help people to open their ears and listen to old music as well. Search for the roots like we have searched for. From metal, to hard rock, to the blues and to way back… So, it’s not that we only listen to Black Sabbath, we listen to a lot of classic music and to new music as well. So, we draw influences from all the ages, not only from the dark ages (laughs)…Axel: I have no idea what’s like for other bands, probably most people just don’t listen to one genre of music, but we have very different kind of influences and maybe that’s one part of why we’re doing it. Because, even though we think it’s classic rock, we’re taking in a lot of influences and then putting these influences through the Graveyard filter, maybe makes us stand out a bit more. Add something that you can’t really say what it is, but it’s there in the music. Rikard: Remember when the stoner scene was really big, after Kyuss and Fu Manchu there were a lot of bands that sounded like they only listened to those bands, instead of listening to maybe what Kyuss were listening to. And that can be a mistake you know. Not digging deeper, not digging broader…

You mentioned the words “mainstream” and “radio”. I can tell you first handed that Graveyard’s music is not only included on radio playlists, but people seem to like it a lot. I’m not objective enough to see what the mainstream dig, but it surprised me because I think you don’t compromise in anything and basically you don’t have the lyrics that mainstream likes. As we like to say you have some “truths” in your music. Axel, I think you the main responsible for these lyrics…Axel: No… we all are. Just, on the latest album, I wrote most of the lyrics. But, also, Rikard writes lyrics… Joakim doesn’t write lyrics, but otherwise we all write lyrics…Rikard: We all have our share for lyrics and music…

Yeah, and you’re quite straight forward with your lyrics. Do you think people appreciate this honesty in your music and lyrics?Axel: I think, no matter what you do, either you’re a comedian, a painter or a musician, people appreciate honesty and integrity. Maybe it can take a longer while, if what you’re bringing to the table is not easily digested and maybe you have to listen to it twice. Music that goes straight to radio, people will listen to it and then sit down and forget it. If you choose to keep an integrity and be honest with what you do and not compromise, like you said, I think people in the end will appreciate it. In the long term that will make a longer and more lasting impact on people. If we’re talking mainstream radio that makes you stand out a little bit, especially if you have lyrics that are not like the other lyrics. But, I don’t know, I’m just the drummer… (laughs)

Well, you do have your love songs, only they’re not like the usual love songs. They don’t have the same perspective with the radio love song… (laughs)Axel: I think happy music is very often bad music. So, it has to be kind of bittersweet or melancholic and have a bit of sadness in it. In music, sadness is beautiful.Rikard: I think that’s where the blues come in. Lyric wise -and music wise as well- we have our roots somewhere the blues are, about the harsh things in life. It’s not something joyful, it’s heavy like trying to bring the pain or bring the stuff that have inside you out, so you can rest and be calm…Axel: There should be excellent blues bands coming out Greece right, because of the hard times that you’re through (laughs)

(laughs) Well, we could, but I don’t think that we have the infrastructure as I like to say. Something that Sweden has for example…Axel: (laughs) Yes, it does…

Now, I really was very happy to see you being the support act for Soundgarden, as these are two bands that I love and rock music needs kind of continuation sometimes. Was it something special for you, or just another support slot?Axel: It’s a big honor, of course. How we got it was as usual through booking agencies and hierarchies and management, but we were playing the same festival – was it like two summers ago? – as Chris Cornell when he did a solo show and when he came on stage he said “sorry for being late, I wish Graveyard would have played a couple more songs” or something like that. So, I think that partly had something to do with us coming to the Soundgarden tour. Always, when you are asked to support these big bands that are part of the big rock history it’s a very big honor. It feels like you’re sort of stepping in the rock history yourself. Maybe like you said it’s a continuation…

For me it’s important to pass the torch to someone who can bear it. We’ve seen bands taking such slots that after a couple of years no one remember and they don’t even remember they played these gigs [editor: at this point Axel smiles and seems to agree]. So, it’s important for bands like Graveyard to play with bands like Soundgarden. Really, have you been yourselves fans of that era of rock music? You know, 90’s grunge and stuff?Axel: I like music from all eras. Joakim is probably the biggest Soundgarden fan in the band, but I listen a lot to Nirvana, Dinosaur Jr or more maybe that kind of music…Rikard: It was hard to be deaf and not hear grunge back then. It was huge in Sweden as well, so of course we listened a lot to them. But, my main thing is that I really liked this scene because they were honest guys and they do what they love and you can hear it in this music.

Do you feel that the role of the support group for Graveyard is now over? Or should you continue taking support slots to broaden your audience?Axel: It depends on the territory and how big is a band. There’s always a band to support and we’re just one tiny band… (laughs)Rikard: There are thousands of bands that are big enough…Axel: I would love to open for Queens Of The Stone Age or Neil Young or… I don’t know, there are so many bands. But, it doesn’t mean that if you open for other bands you can’t do your own shows too… We’re doing pretty well making a living of our music, so I guess we’ll have to see how it goes when the next album comes out.

Do you think that the place in the bill that take on the big music festivals somehow marks where the band stands in the industry of rock music?Axel: Like on the posters?

Yeah…Axel: I guess it’s some sort of measurement of you big you are. Often, if you’re high up on the bill, you play a bigger stage and if you play a bigger stage more people will see you…Rikard: It’s like a commercial for the festivals. If you want a lot of people, you put the bands that draw a lot of people bigger. I guess we draw a couple of people, at least more than we started, so we climb up a couple of steps. We’re not among the biggest bands on the posters, we’re among the small, so sometime hopefully we’ll be there…

You’ve quite productive the last few years at least, as you put out two records in one year and half. Would you like to stay productive like that or would you like to take a step back, play the same songs again and again… [editor: Axel’s grin indicates that it’s the last thing he wants to do] As I can see you’re not very fond of the idea…No, I prefer reunion tours… in a couple of years (laughs). No, but I don’t think we’re gonna be that fast this time. We’re gonna have a bit more time off to write the new album next year. This is the last thing we’re doing this year, this weekend in Greece. And then next year we’re going to Australia for like 12 days and then a sorter run in the U.S. and then the festivals in the summer, but in between we’re going to stay at home and write some songs and hopefully we’ll start recording next fall. So, maybe not as fast as the last time, but not slow either. We’re not very fast song writers, but we try to whip ourselves and get together.

For many musicians, either for more income or to fill the gaps between the tour-album cycles, the new trend is the side projects. Do you have side projects in mind or are you focused on Graveyard?Axel: Sometimes we play with other people for fun, jump around with friends and stuff. I don’t have anything serious, I don’t know about him… I heard he’s starting a new band… (laughs)Rikard: I start a lot of bands but nothing serious, but I try to jam a lot and play with a lot musicians, so I can evolve my sound. That’s what I do, I play music and make bands. But, Graveyard is my main band, so I don’t want to jump into something else, because it would be bad to the guys in the other band, because Graveyard will always be more important. Axel: I used to be in another band, I started a band with John Hoyles, the guitarist from Witchcraft. They’re called Spiders and it was before “Hisingen Blues” came out that we started the band, but I had to quit after 6 months, because of all the touring with Graveyard and it wasn’t that fair to the guys of that band. It meant that this band could do no shows. “No, I’m off touring with Graveyard”, “No, I’m off touring with Graveyard”, but now they’re doing very good for themselves anyway. But, as Rikard said it’s like evolving by playing with other musicians. We know each other very well, because we’ played so long together, we’ve jammed so much with each other, so it’s fun to try to play with other musicians, because you get new angles, new ideas. This week actually I recorded a song with a bunch of different people for a newspaper/magazine for homeless people in Gothenburg . They let the sellers, the homeless people that sell the magazine choose their favorite songs and then they had musicians from Gothenburg recording covers of them. I did “Suspicious Minds” of Elvis with a couple of people from Gothenburg and that was really fun. I’ve never played with them before…

I already told you I consider you leaders of a scene, so if I’d ask you to pick up three bands from this scene make something like the absolute tour for the new bands of that sound, which ones would you choose?Axel: I hate that…Rikard: The thing is that I don’t listen that much to new bands, so it’s a kind of hard question. But, if I could choose then I would definitely not take three bands that would sound like us. I would definitely have a broader specter. If I was in the audience and listened to the same thing and then another band playing like the previous one… I don’t know…Axel: It’s like eating birthday cake for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Cause, when I go to a show and there are three doom bands I’m fed up after the first band. If I see a doom band, I want to see a grindcore band afterwards, so if we picked up two bands for support maybe we’d choose one blues man that would sing for himself or a woman and then a death metal band to have like a full spectrum. Because, both of those styles are influencing us and you get a broader specter like Rikard said before. So, I don’t get anything from watching the same thing, I think it’s boring.

In my opinion you’re looking from the inside of all this, cause it’s not that close as you say it is. For example you can say that Soundgarden and Pearl Jam are both grunge bands, but they’re not the same at all…Axel: That’s true…

The same could go for you and Witchcraft. So, we as fans kind of think which bands we’d like to see together. You know, maybe Graveyard with Witchcaft and Troubled Horse would make a fantastic tour, something like that. That was actually the spirit of the question I did before…Axel: Oh, maybe Bombus from Gothenburg and I don’t know… Spiders or Horisont… (laughs) but maybe these are selfish reasons, because they’re good friends of us and it’s always nice to go on tour with good friends… I have a hard time not having the insight perspective as you said… I don’t know about you Rikard…Rikard: Same here. It’s very hard to be objective on that question. We have to hear the same bands over and over again every night along with the bands that are playing and that’s why we tend to like hearing something broader instead of something more narrow.

Now, as I mentioned before I really like your lyrics very much for many reasons. So I’d like to know which song for you Rikard means the most when you hear the lyrics and which one for you Axel…Axel: Pfff, ask me on Monday and you’ll get one answer, ask me on Tuesday and you’ll get another answer.

So, you don’t have one song that lyric wise is very special for you?Rikard: I started to write some of the lyrics to “Blue Soul” and Truls, the guitarist we had at that time, he finished it and this song is about a guy who didn’t want to live anymore and it started out when my father died – he hanged himself, so that songs means a lot to me…Axel: Yeah, it’s a good song… [editor: exhales deeply] It’s always very hard. It depends if you choose on like if it’s a personal playing or like criticism of the system… I don’t know. I like “Thin Line”. It’s about a good friend of ours, who was in trouble and I like to play this songs live.

I guess that you get asked more often for is “Uncomfortably Numb”, right?Axel: There’s a lot of songs that people ask about. One song that I l often want to laugh when we play is “The Siren”, because I wrote those lyrics when my girlfriend at that time woke me up, cause I had a nightmare about Roky Erikson. (laughs).

He’s the demon?Yeah, yeah. I dreamt that he fooled me into this house where he tried to kill me and he was in the same dream and I was screaming in my sleep. She woke me up and asked “what are you doing?” and then I went up and wrote it down. But, now, when you are looking someone singing “swimming through the swamp in a thousand flamingos” (laughs) I think it’s just really weird lyrics and I often start laughing when I see people faces and they’re really living into the lyrics. And then I listen to what they sing and it’s about “a thousand flamingos” [laughs]

For this particular song I have a very good friend of mine who’s quite a good drinker I’d say and he swears that this a song you wrote after heavy drinking (laughs)…Axel: Well, yeah, I guess… (laughs)

One last question. What do you expect from tonight’s show and what’s next in the Graveyard camp?Rikard: You never know what to expect from a new country when you play for the first time, but it seems like it’s going to be a good night. Next thing is Australia in February and that’s gonna be the last station, at the other side of the world, but at the same time we’ve never played in Greece before either, so we’re really looking forward for tonight…Axel: I heard it’s going to be sold out and that should make good show. Since we haven’t been here before and we’ve been around quite a while as a band, maybe people are excited to see us.

I’ll make a guess. Graveyard will come back soon and play for a bigger audience next time…Axel: I hope so. We hope to come back maybe for a festival in the summer too. Have a swim… I saw the pool on the football stadium on the way here… (laughs)

Ok, but I have to warn you, the heat in the summer maybe be too much for you Swedes…Axel: I have been here once before on vacation…